Wilson Phillips "You Won't See My Cry"

Somehow, I ended up watching listening to audio from Casey Kasem's Year End Countdown from 1992 on YouTube. With all the songs I search for as research for this blog, the analytics department over at Google must have a field day with me. Among the handful of songs I didn't remember from Casey's countdown was the ballad "You Won't See Me Cry". In case you're wondering, the Wilson Phillips tune finished #24 for the year. Now on with the countdown...

Bette Midler - "Wind Beneath My Wings"

According to my fuzzy math, approximately 35,482 high school choirs have performed "Wind Beneath My Wings" since 1989. Bette Midler recorded the song for the soundtrack to the movie Beaches, yet Lee Greenwood, Gladys Knight & The Pips, and Lou Rawls also have performed their own versions of the tune long before Bette became synonymous with it.

Additionally, my fuzzy math also counts "Wind Beneath My Wings" as getting 18,932,436 plays during Casey Kasem's "Long Distance Request & Dedication" segment...give or take a few.

Richard Marx - "Right Here Waiting"

Taking a page from Casey Kasem's "long distance dedication", Richard Marx penned an audio love letter to his then-wife Cynthia Rhodes in the tender ballad "Right Here Waiting".  Rhodes was away filming a movie in South Africa when Marx penned the song.  The ballad became Marx's signature song and a staple of Adult Contemporary radio during that era.

Shinedown - "Second Chance"

When Casey Kasem stepped down from his countdown show in 2009, his final #1 songs were Taylor Swift's "Love Story" (on the Adult Contemporary version of his countdown) and "Second Chance" from Shinedown (on the Hot Adult Contemporary version of his countdown).  Pop music much different then as compared to Casey's first #1 song: "Mama Told Me Not to Come" by Three Dog Night.  Casey ended his final show with his familiar message: "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars."

Huey Lewis & The News - "Walking On A Thin Line"

When the world lost Casey Kasem in 2014, I thought back to all the Sunday mornings my mom would play The Weekly Top 40.  We'd listen each week because we had to know if there was a new #1 song (it all sounds kinda pathetic by today's standards, but that's what you did in 1984).  My earliest recollections of Huey Lewis & The News was the song "Walking on A Thin Line".  I taped the song off the radio and I remember Casey's booming voice over the end of the song saying: "Moving up two notches is Huey Lewis & The News with 'Walking On A Thin Line'...".  Even today, I can't hear the song without hearing Casey's voice.